Jeez - I don't know what's wrong with me sometimes. Why can't I just be happy with simple things? I think at one time, as a kid, I was. But I think the key was that my understanding of things around me was also simple. Now, I know more, and just the knowledge makes life, decisions, thoughts, discussion more complex, even for the simple things. I remember being able to read in my bed and snack and just be ecstatic just to do that. At that time, I would have been happy to never have done anything else. I was totally satisfied to do that. Now, I look back and realize that ther not only wouldn't provide the same intellectual stimulus, it was also unhealthy. I can't be too hard on myself, because I didn't, as most kids don't - understand what's going on. Kids can't indepentantly understand the cause and effect of doing too little execise and too much eating. They can do better through behavioral modification,but that takes parental involvement. Didn't have to much of that.

Now- doing something as simple as sitting and reading doesn't usually give me such pleasure, typically because somewhere in the back of my mind I eventually have to go and so something else. And where the thought of have nothing to do, especially in the summer, was nirvana as a kid, the thought of having nothing to do as an adult seems terrifying. Funny, it is.

I think that as usual, it's not that I'm different, I have my board of worries like I always have, I just have refocused them on the things in my life now, life so and new job etc.

As bored as I sometimes get, I have to be extremely thankful that I can even do this. I really can't ever be dissatisfied, because where else can I get a job that pays, although not greatly, enough to support and half of someone else, let us buy a house, let me take classes for freeand have enough time and few enough stresses that I can actually study. I mean come on! I have a lot less stressful job now - I should be thankful. If I'm bored, it's because I'm goofing off and need to be working on something. The GRE, MCATs, whatever. I need to do it for myself, because there's nothing else here to pressure me really.

It's late on a Friday afternoon. The heat outside is really oppressive. I should be ecstatic to be free for the weekend and able to go home and do anything I want. But I feel a bit nostalgic and lonely and wistful. I want to be able to live in my mind's eye of effortless fun and comfort in a really nice home, where we'll have a barbeque and friends that I want to see come over and hand out. Or that I'm at my dad's and he'll grill and I can just veg. I can have a lot of this - but it takes work. I need stuff for things to do at the house - options:

- Goto Sdale and hang out at the mall (not productive, but weirdly soothing)
- Goto Home Depot and get stuff to work on the house. Sadly, it is dangerously hot and I can't really do this. Unless I get up at five tomorrow. That's actually a possiblity. OR - I can take the lamp out and do it tonite.
- Go downtown and hang out at the Border's
- Go the the mall and hang out at the Border's.

So many exciting adventures - so little time. Dang I want to be in S. right now. It's palpable how bad I want to. Right now - I don't hate it here, but god I miss my city. It's irrational!

This is taking forever. I wish I could just go to school, take the classes I need, and get the hell finished. Is that too much to ask?

I"m tired - I don't know what to do. I think I should plug away on the classes, maybe try the GRE and the MCATS, and see what happens.

Focus...must...keep...head out of...ass...

Jeez - I feel like the laziest person. I wish I had a summer vacation like I used to. Although looking back, I didn't do a lot in the summer except read and ride my bike. So - I think I'm looking back with nostalgia on something that never was.

God - if I were still in S. - what would I be doing? I'd probably have some big programming chore that I didn't want to do. I'd probably go for a walk from S-A to the ave. Maybe I could go kayaking. I did sailing, I need to get myself involved in something. I have time now - but I won't in a few weeks. So - I can either enjoy what I have now, or get depressed because I'm not busier. Life's a bitch, ain't it?

I have to get a job doing something else....

If I never see another doubly-bonded carbon again, I'll be a happy camper.

Anyway - thinking for the future, I need to make a list of the highest priority things I'd like to do at the house and balance them for effectiveness, cost. etc.

- Get a little truck to haul things in
- Replace outer doors
- $200 - $250 for doors, need to get tools to fix for install. $100? Would add a lot to the look of the house, be more secure, close easier, etc.
- Replace inner doors - $300 - $400 - Put lights / outlets at the rear of the house- Paint in the dining area / kitchen
- Put recessed lights in the front rooms- Change master bed. ceiling fan

Right now we're not house-poor, but we have to watch what we do with our money. Again, sometimes I wonder about being "in a hole" but then I have to realize we've had a lot of expenses since I moved here, besides the house. I've listed these before, but together:

- $1500 to open an IRA for Joe
- $400 for car hoses
- $200 for car brakes
- $100 for tire maintenance
- $500 for the wedding
- $200 for moving into the house
- $1100 for overall moving expenses last year
- $500 for Joe to go to Minnesota
- $1600 for appliances
- $600 for books, charges for classes

That's $6700 for one-time expenses or things that either we couldn't have planned on or didn't forsee. These are all things (except for the car) that can't be counted as "home maintenance" or "food".

This flotilla of stress - it's hard to quantifiy how it affects me every day. I think I don't even realize that underlying pressure, pushing at me. No wonder I put on weight so easily. If someone would just come up with a drug to lower stress-hormone production, it would probably help me immensely.

I'm not sure why I do it. I think I had a vision and plan once, and now I'm somehow still running on fumes. Hopefully this will get better again, and I'll feel more inspired to keep going. It has been a rought year, it really really has.

It's booow-rring right now. But - I can't complain - boring is actually nice. I am completely finished with all class obligations for the regular school year. YEAY!!!!!!

I'm taking classes this summer, but they're something new. FINALLY!!!!!!! Something that I haven't already had before! Actually - last term, most of what I was taking was something new, but I was just so busy that I didn't have time to enjoy much of it.

So - I now have the next several weeks to myself. I can't believe it - I don't know what to do with myself! I can do stuff at the house! I'm free in the evenings! I can go to the malls every night if I want to. I can do anything I want! I've been going over a list of things to do at the house, and it feels good because I was wondering there for a while if I'd ever want to do anything practical again. I was just so burned out when I got home. I have to give myself some credit - what I was doing was really stressful, even if I've had the stuff before. I has a lot more time to myself before. Now I have so, so things have to be a bit more balanced.

Just the stess of it - there's no way to slice it otherwise - ochem is the hardest class you can take. Even Biochem isn't as hard or at least the material isn't - you can study and actually get the right answers in biochem. But in ochem - there's so much material, it's just hard.

And - although last term was actually fun in ochem - this one was a pain. Almost all the reactions were in this term, and they were covered in a way that made them even more difficult. I think the way they teack ochem maybe needs to change. Covering all these reactions isn't very useful if you're going on to biological subject matter - bio systems just don't work the same way as in a test tube.

Now I have to decide what I want to do with my time. It's actually exciting now!!!!!

False illusions - does that mean reality or that you have illusions but the wrong ones? Or that your illusions are lying to you?

I am so unhappy right now - this blog seems so negative when I read it, but I think this is the main way for me to vent frustrations. I don't really have anyone to talk to - and if I did, this would be a total drag. I think I should be happy - and a lot of things in my life are better than they used to be, but there's an underlying anger towards so that colors everything in my life. Is it the house? Is it because this is a pemanent thing? I don't set out to be upset. I don't just want to be.

But I feel like so doesn't care. If he can't finish this fucking thing for himself - can't he do it for me? No - the faulty logic in this is that if someone can't do things for themselves, they certainly can't for others.

I know I need to hang in there -I need to give this at least a year. After all, if I spent 4 years on a job, I should at least give this a year. I'm not perfect. I have problems. But I think the things that are wrong with me don't hold him back. If anything - he has gotten a lot more done since I've been here. But right now - I really want to kick his head in! I mean I feel violent about this.

I say I don't want to control him. And my gut tells me I don't. I want him to stand up and take initiative. The anger problem is mine, though - if we split up today, he could find someone else and I think if they didn't care that he never did anything in his life and they would be happy. I, on the other hand, probably won't be happy no matter what.

Maybe I need to get some anti-depressants. Maybe it's time. I'm under a lot of stress even when I'm not under stress. My heart has been racing all day. It's terrible. I want to feel regret and maybe that will make me calm down - but every time I think about things, I just get pissed off.

I think I've lost sense of humor here. Yup, it's like it's broken or something. What do I say? "Help, I think I broke my sense of humor?"

I get tired of doing things via internet. Sometimes I just want to have a whole work day that has nothing to do with a computer. No typing, no monitor glare, nothing. Its funny when you're a kid - you have this big long list of things you want that would make you happy. A piano, a sailboat, a pony.

As an adult, though - I've found that just aquiring a list of things doesn't make happiness either. You get the next item - so what? But I have been happy. Living in the moment. Being at an amusement park. A water park - those were some of the happiest times. Getting to see a friend after a long time of not seeing them. Sneaking out when I was a teen. Being at my dad's for a cookout.

I think they were fun because they weren't in the normal run of things - they were unexpected, exceptional, exhilerating - because I didn't know exactly what was going to happen, and what was happening was never going to happen again. And I had so much energy that I thought I'd be perfectly happy to keep on doing what I was doing forever. And, I didn't have to control what I was doing - someone else did all the planning and responsiblity for me, or at least for my life in general.

Now I'm happy when I to get on a plane for a just a fun trip (which is almost never) . I'm happy to get to do something with a friend that I don't often see. I was happy to go places with hs - this because I never knew what was going to happen with him, and he has knowledge of the world that goes beyond my own. I'm happy when I make a good grade on something I've worked hard on. I'm happy when I save a lot of money. I'm happy sometimes when I just sit and watch tv when I know I should be doing something else.

I was happy when I would hike in the woods in al. Sadly, I'm happy and get excited about what I'm going to eat. Although, this doesn't happen as much around so. It's weird, but I don't get happy, only vaguely frustrated when I can't eat what I want because I'm NEVER ALONE!!!!!!

It occured to me - i never get any alone time because when I'm not at work, I'm with him. And it's not that we plan this - part of it's the one car thing, but the other is that all he has in his life is the phd. If he's not doing that - he can't let himself really do anything but sleep or eat. There's never anything he does outside of phd if it's not with me.

Right now I'm in a really tired mindset. Versus being really tired? Anyway - so as usual wanted to go driving late at night. We've got to come to some kind of agreement that he go out on his own and I get the sleep I need. Also - the smacking at nite drives me nuts. And as usual, it's something that I can't bring up without him acting like a petulant child. In his family, the rule of thumb is to by-god just not say anything. No wonder they're all nuts!

Anyway - I have to work on usability, and I don't want to. I'm so tired and bored by the whole thing. I was reading an interview with Richard Dawkins today, and it refuting the idea of the sterile, cold atheist way of seeing things, he put his "lust for life" in terms of consideration of how lucky he or any of us are to even exist. So - make hay because each of us only gets a few decades to wonder about and think about the grand universe around us.

I want to feel less tired. I want to feel really thankful for all I have. I think I just need to let things catch up with me, take a breather. This weekend was nice, I didn't do too much, and I really enjoyed that. We just watched videos and did a few lite errands. I need about a week to do that. I haven't had a fuck-it-off-just-for-me vacation since...really since Margaret and I went kayaking in 2001. That's bad. No wonder I feel tired. If my job were really envigorating, I think I'd not feel so tired all the time. Dang!

That part of my old job I do miss. I wish I could pull all the elements of my life together, and I'd find total happiness. If I could have my house from al, so, job here, in s it would be truly perfect. But - perfect is what you make of things.